Tom's Disappearance
by hpgryffy
Summary: Riddle gets fed up with Hogwarts and leaves just a few days early. Unfortunately Dumbledore notices that Mister Riddle is no longer in the school and makes a point to speak with him. What happens?


The Great Hall erupted in a chorus of cheers and whistling as Ravenclaw was announced the winner of this year's house cup. The only group not celebrating was Slytherin, they had been beaten by 5 house points and this had ruined their, up until 5 minutes ago, 7 year winning streak. No one looked unhappier than one Tom Marvolo Riddle and his expression was only closely followed by those of his cronies.

"Boys. Lets get out of here, I'm sick of these festivities." Standing as one, but Tom standing the tallest and most authoritatively, the group of four slipped out the nearest set of doors and out into the fresh air of the school grounds. "How did this happen? How did you three let Ravenclaw steal my perfect record? I spent countless hours keeping Slytherin in the running, year after year, and all you three had to do was make sure the other houses always got caught misbehaving. IS THAT SO HARD?"

"No, My Lord." All three of them were quaking under his steely glare, but Avery was able to muster up a few more words. "I'm sorry that we failed you. Please, forgive us for our wrongs."

"Lord Voldemort does not forgive lightly. If you cannot keep Mulciber and Dolohov in line, I will not do so as easily again." He looked up at the towering castle behind him. "I'm leaving. Only you will know where to find me. Recruit new members and send them to me, but make sure they're willing to follow the rules. Make my excuses."

The three of them watched him walk off towards the entrance to the grounds, and then with a wave of his wand his trunk catching up to him after a moment. He reached the edge of the magical protections and turned back towards the three of them standing there, staring as he left.

_ Do not disappoint me again_, came floating back and into Avery's brain. He shivered.

"Well, it looks like he has left us to clean up the mess here at Hogwarts. Shall we boys?" Avery looked back at the spot where his master had just been standing before disapparating, and those words floated back into his brain again. "Neither of you should say anything to the Headmaster, and especially not to Dumbledore," Dumbledore's name was accompanied by a spit on the dirt by their feet. "We don't want to get into trouble with the Lord again."

The three of them made their way back into the Great Hall again, sitting back at their seats and avoiding the questioning expressions on the faces of the others in the Hall. A hurried meal was followed by an even more hurried exit from the hall. Unfortunately they were unable to make it back to their dormitories without getting stopped by the one person who they knew should be avoided.

"Ah, Misters Avery, Dolohov, and Mulciber. Where is Mister Riddle? He is normally with you as you make your way back to your dormitories." Avery shifted uneasily under Dumbledore's piercing stare. "Has young Mister Riddle fallen ill?"

"Yes professor, but he didn't think he was sick enough to go to the infirmary. He just headed back to the dormitory to get a good night's sleep. He'll be all better to go home tomorrow on the train sir. Did you have something that you wanted us to tell him? We are very capable of passing along a message." Avery shifted nervously again.

"Oh, so he'll be on the train tomorrow? That's wonderful news. I look forward to seeing him there. No worries Mister Avery, I'll just ask him myself tomorrow. It's not so important that you need to disturb him from his rest to talk to him about, especially if he's fallen ill. Good night boys." Dumbledore looked at them all again before turning and walking away. Once he was safely out of ear shot all three of the Death Eaters breathed a sigh of relief.

"Now what are we going to do? He's off our case for now, but come tomorrow when the Lord isn't on the train what are we going to do? Avery, you should have said that he had left early or something!" Dolohov was hysterical. He never fared well after run-ins with Dumbledore, he got too shaken up by those piercing blue eyes.

Avery slapped him across the face, "Pull yourself together man! And don't call him," His voice dropped to a whisper, "Lord," it raised to normal levels again, "out here where anyone can hear you. Come on, we're going to the dormitory and that's the end of this discussion until we are safely in the Common Room." Walking quickly and dragging Mulciber and Dolohov behind him, Avery went down into the dungeons and stopped in front of the entrance to their dorms.

"Do you all know the plan?" He kept his voice low, making sure that no one could hear their shared words, "No one is to know that Tom left, he has been in our room all night. Got it?" They nodded at him and turned expectantly to the brick wall. "_Dominance_" issued from all three of their mouths and the bricks disappeared and showed a door, admitting them into the Common Room where the absence of Tom was immediately recognized. Zachary, the other member of their dorm came running up to them a worried expression on his face.

"Where's Tom?" The three of them shared a glance before Mulciber raised his want and quickly muttered _Imperio_. Zachary turned to face the rest of the room, "Tom has been in our room all night, sleeping peacefully. The upset at supper made him nauseous so he came back early. Please. Don't fear anything. Tom will be back tomorrow on the train, with a smile on his face. Goodnight all, I'm going to retire now." He slowly walked up the stairs to the dorm and the three of them sighed in relief. Sometimes it was good to be servants of an evil master.

The rest of the room shrugged, or their version of a shrug and turned their attentions back to whatever else they had been doing at the time. Avery, and Dolohov however turned and glared at Mulciber.

"Just what were you thinking?"

"What if someone had seen you?"

"What if someone had heard you?"

"Are you trying to get Him in trouble? Do you – "

"Would the two of you just shut up! No one heard, no one saw, no one will say anything and now everyone will believe us. Isn't that what we wanted?" Mulciber felt the need to shut off the stream of questions before they got any louder and the entire Common Room knew that they had just used one of the forbidden curses on a classmate.

"At least you didn't kill him. I guess that was good thinking on your part. Perhaps we can use that again tomorrow on the train, not on Dumbledore himself of course, but get other people to tell him that they'd seen Tom on the train? Well… Its something to think about." He stopped whispering and looked around the room again. Everyone was minding their own business and he was able to sneak himself, Mulciber and Dolohov upstairs without anyone noticing.

"So far everything is going according to plan. No one has any reason to doubt that Lord Voldemort left the school earlier today and that he won't be on the train tomorrow. Perhaps this will go off without a problem. Go to sleep. We're going to need to be up bright and early tomorrow to make sure things go off as planned. No one can know that the Lord isn't here anymore, and to do that we're going to need to be up extra early and make an appearance in the common rooms to go get him some food. He'll have some… last minute packing to do or something." Dolohov and Mulciber nodded and went to their beds. Before Avery himself went to sleep he looked over at his Lord's empty bed._This will work. I will not fail you again.  
_

The next morning, Avery snuck down into the common room, making a big scene about going to get Tom some breakfast. In actuality it was Dolohov at the top of the stairs pretending to be a sick Tom. _So far so good_ Avery thought to himself as he left the Common Room and headed up to the Great Hall for some breakfast food. He had barely sat down at the table before Dumbledore approached.

"Good morning Mister Avery. I trust Mister Riddle is in better health this morning?" That familiar twinkle and piercing gaze was back. Avery shuddered a little before looking up to look Dumbledore in the face.

"No professor. He was here a few moments ago getting some toast to calm his stomach."

"Perhaps it would be in his best interest to go to the infirmary? We don't want to send him home feeling sick now do we?" Dumbledore had yet to blink and Avery had begun to shift nervously again.

"I don't think that's necessary professor. It's probably just his sadness at having to leave school. You know how much he hates it when the year is over and he has to go back to that orphanage. I think he just needs some time alone professor. I'll make sure he gets home safely." Avery's eyes darted back down to the food at the table in front of him.

"Very well. Just make sure young Mister Riddle comes to see me before he leaves on the train. I have a few things to say to him." Dumbledore turned and strode away towards the head table, stopping after only making it a few feet away from Avery, "Oh, and I don't want to hear any more excuses. I want to talk to Tom." The twinkle had disappeared from his eyes, and Avery just got a stone blue, piercing look. He gulped and felt himself nodding.

As Dumbledore walked the rest of the way up to the high table, Avery sighed and the realization of what had just happened hit him. _What the hell did I just agree to! How can we have the Lord there to talk to Dumbledore when he's not here. _Panic rose in his throat as he grabbed a stack of toast and left the hall, munching as he headed down to the dungeons and back into the Common Room. Once again he made a big show of taking the toast up to Tom. A few minutes after Avery made his way upstairs, Zachary was sent down.

"Zachary! How's Tom doing? Is he alright? It's just so horrible that he fell ill on the last day here. Are you sure—"

"Tom is fine. He'll be well soon and should be just fine to take the journey home with the rest of us. Do not worry about him any more."

"Can we go see him? I want to be able to say goodbye to him before we get on the train. I'm going to miss him so much and I think that he--"

"No more questions." Zachary walked out the portrait hole and left a group of stunned Slytherines in his wake.

"So, um. I guess that's a no." The excited group of people went back to their original corners and only Jayme, the young woman who had been asking the questions was left. _Just what was up with that? When did Zach turn so cold, especially towards me. _

Back upstairs a very distressed Dolohov and Mulcibur were learning about Avery's conversation with Dumbledore. None of them could come up with a way to have their Lord show up just to have a chat with Dumbledore.

"Perhaps a cloaking charm?"

"No that won't work. Dumbledore's too smart to be fooled by a charm. What we need is…. Yes of course! It's perfect!" Avery rushed off to his bed and opened a bedside drawer, and then the secret compartment that was inside of that. He slowly pulled out a very small potion vial. "Polyjuice potion." Dolohov and Mulciber exchanged a glance, one that showed eagerness and upmost interest in what they were about to be shown.

"This will allow one of us to assume the identity of our Lord for precisely one hour. But we have to be careful. No one is to see us before the change or while we're changing back. We don't want anyone asking questions now do we?" The two of them shook their heads. "Dolohov. You're going to become our Lord. Don't let it get to your head though, its only for one hour and you're going to have to be careful, very careful not to let Dumbledore that you aren't really him. Can you do this?"

"Um. Forgive me, but why aren't you the one changing? And um… Where did you get the potion from?" Dolohov gulped, he wasn't sure he wanted to be their master; he had enough problems being himself.

"I can't change because I'm the one Dumbledore's been talking to this whole time and if I'm not there he'll be suspicious. Don't you worry your pretty little head about where I got this from either. That's between me and… well.. Our Lord. Now. Go check his pillow and pick me a piece of his hair off the pillow." Dolohov returned and Avery very carefully uncorked the bottle and dropped the hair in. After the slight reaction he re-corked it and handed it to Dolohov. "Do not drink this until I tell you to."

"Are you sure I can do this? Why don't you just make excuses again? I mean even Mulciber over there knows that Dumbledore isn't easily fooled. How do you know that this is going to work?" Dolohov almost cowered under the stare that Avery had now fixed upon him.

"You can and will do this! It isn't that hard to pretend to be sick and nod at everything that Dumbledore says. I've already explained to you that he won't take any excuse this time around and this is polyjuice potion. As long as you don't say that you're you he won't be able to tell the difference." Avery hated to be this mean to his friends. Normally he wouldn't have, it's just his Lord's words kept echoing back into his brain every time he wanted to give up. _Do not disappoint me again.  
_

"Avery. Are you sure this is a good idea?" Mulciber decided that now was the best time to voice his opinions. _Damn these stupid idiots that don't know when they've lost.  
_

"Yes of course it's a good idea! What would our Lord have us do? We have to protect him. We have to. We have to…" He trailed off and the others nodded their agreement. They all knew what failure meant. They had seen it before. When their Lord had set the Basilisk on the school to kill Mudbloods, they knew that he was ready to kill anyone that stood in their way. Their Lord would even kill his followers if he thought that he had been betrayed.

"So… How are we going to pull this off?" Mulciber seemed to have gathered his thoughts again, grouping an entire range of emotions into nine simple words.

"We're going to leave the dorm room at the last minute. Dolohov is going to leave visibly to the entire school, going to be one of the first people to head out to the train, and then he's going to sneak back here using one of the secret passages, turn into our Lord and come down with us supporting him. We'll talk to Dumbledore, and get onto the train. It'll be perfect." He nodded to himself, smiling at how flawless the plan was. Nothing would go wrong, he simply wouldn't allow it. Not this time. There would be no more failing the Lord. "Oh, and Dolohov, do remember that you're going to be answering to Tom and not Dolohov. That's the one thing that could ruin this."

Dolohov nodded. His heart started to beat quickly at the thought of having to impersonate their lord. _If I mess up, that's the end of me isn't it? There are no more chances. Shit. _He ate the offered piece of toast in silence, thinking slowly to himself. _What will Dumbledore talk to me about? Its obvious that he won't let me get away with just nodding, but what will I have to say? What can I do to make sure this doesn't go wrong_. After what felt like seconds he was being pulled to his feet and pushed down the stairs. He exited the common room and made his way out to the carriages, and made what seemed to anyone else his way into one of them.

He ran back to the castle doors, making sure to stay hidden from any prying eyes, and snuck in one of the side entrances. Running through the halls, and hiding behind gargoyles, tapestries, and suits of armor, he made his way back to the common room without being seen. So far everything was going as planned. _This may just work_.

"Did anyone see you?" Dolohov shook his head. "Good. Are you ready to be our lord?" This time Avery didn't even wait for a response before continuing. "Ok. Drink up." The potion was practically thrown down his throat and Avery didn't even look the least worried when he started gasping and sputtering for breath.

"Mulciber. Take the Imperius curse off Zachary when we get to the station. We don't want anyone getting suspicious of his actions. Good, he's done transforming. Lets go." Mulciber looked around confusedly until he realized that he was staring at the spitting image of their Lord. Avery gave "Tom" a little push to get him started and leading them down up towards the entrance. They came up into the warm air and "Tom" immediately went up to Dumbledore.

"Professor? I heard that you wanted to talk to me…"

* * *

Yes, I know, evil cliffie. Please don't hate me for it and remember to read and review! 


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